FIA sets up dark web investigation unit to trace criminals hiding in shadowy realm

Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency has established a dedicated unit to track and prosecute criminals operating on the dark web, housing the new capability within its National Command and Control Centre as part of a broader push to counter cybercrime networks operating beyond the reach of conventional policing.

Why the FIA is building this now

FIA Director General Dr Usman Anwar said the unit specifically targets "criminal networks involved in creating illegal documents that facilitate human trafficking and illegal migrant smuggling," tying the initiative directly to organized crime networks that have increasingly moved parts of their operations onto encrypted, hard-to-trace platforms.

How the unit is structured

The new unit sits within the FIA's National Command and Control Centre, known as NC3, under the direction of Dr Athar Waheed. Rather than operating as a standalone team, it works alongside the FIA's existing cryptocurrency investigation unit, giving investigators combined access to blockchain forensic tools and open-source intelligence gathering alongside dark web tracking capability.

The tools investigators will use

The unit is equipped with technology designed to overcome the obfuscation techniques criminals rely on to stay hidden, including the ability to track cryptocurrency transactions, a common payment method on dark web marketplaces precisely because it can complicate efforts to trace money back to real identities, and to build detailed criminal profiles from the fragments of data investigators do manage to recover.

What the dark web actually is

For readers unfamiliar with the terminology, the dark web operates through encrypted networks, most commonly Tor, or The Onion Router, software maintained by more than 7,000 volunteer-run relays worldwide that route traffic in a way designed to obscure a user's identity and location. It sits apart from both the surface web, the publicly indexed internet most people use daily, and the deep web, which includes legitimate private content like online banking portals that simply aren't indexed by search engines.

What kind of crime the unit is chasing

The dark web's deliberate anonymity has made it a hub for illegal marketplaces trading in drugs, weapons, stolen data and hacking tools, alongside the document forgery and trafficking networks Dr Anwar specifically flagged as a priority. That combination of anonymity and illicit commerce is precisely why conventional investigative techniques often struggle to keep pace with dark web-based criminal networks.

A capability gap the FIA is trying to close

Cybercrime units in many countries have historically lagged behind the criminal networks exploiting encrypted platforms, and Pakistan's dark web investigation unit represents an attempt to close that gap using combined cryptocurrency-tracing and open-source intelligence capabilities rather than treating dark web crime as a niche problem handled ad hoc by general cybercrime staff.

Whether the unit can meaningfully disrupt the document forgery and trafficking networks Dr Anwar named as its priority target will depend on how effectively its blended toolkit, cryptocurrency forensics, OSINT and dedicated dark web tracking, can be applied against criminal groups that have built their entire operating model around staying untraceable.

Success will also depend on cooperation beyond Pakistan's borders, since dark web infrastructure and the cryptocurrency payment rails that fund it typically span multiple jurisdictions. A unit built entirely around domestic investigative powers can trace activity only so far before it needs international partners willing to act on the leads it uncovers.